FUSION – A St. Louis DesignWeek Event
– By Tony Schmidt, exhibit designer
Through our Industrial Design of America St. Louis chapter, Brian Pelcak, Jason Mills, and I were contributing organizers of an event called FUSION, which was a component to the annual AIGA St. Louis DesignWeek event series and held from September 20th – 28th. Our FUSION team included not only our PGAV and IDSA squad, but members from Niche Furnishings + Design, Openly Disruptive and the HOK model shop. Our FUSION event began as a week-long gallery exposition of design featuring examples of design businesses and their product developments from concept to consumer. The exhibit was initially held at Niche Furnishings & Design and included a design discussion series called FUSION – ACCELERATED led by Openly Disruptive.
However, the main event followed when FUSION migrated to the Webster University Community Music School for a full day and evening of events to include a gallery design exposition, demonstrations, and presentations. The auditorium’s lobby held the design exhibition, which included displays from local design firms, as well as 3D printing demonstrations by Computer Aided Technology, Inc. (CATI).
In the afternoon Eames Demetrios (grandson of Charles Eames, and Chairman of the Eames Foundation) presented on his theme “Never Delegate Understanding.” The presentation followed with sales and book signing of his book, An Eames Primer. Food and drinks were also served to inspire dialog–preparing for the concluding presentation: the annual, professionally juried, IDSA Student Bragging Rights competition where university designers from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and St. Louis University competed on this year’s theme: “Deliver an Innovative Product Solution to Improve Accessibility in the Workplace.”
In support of this theme, the United Way organization, Paraquad, was invited to represent where the director, Pamela Perlmutter, also advised students on ways they could improve their designs to best serve the physically impaired community. During the event, donations were generated and given to Paraquad. However, their presence at the event was believed to be the real contribution–enabling the sharing of their positive message and as a learning opportunity for students and guests on designing for accessibility.
An event seven months in the making, we are happy to report that all went extremely well with roughly 300 people attending. Several attendees expressed surprise to learn that the represented businesses within the gallery exhibition (including PGAV Destinations) were all local St. Louis companies – a lot of pride for St. Louis circulated the event as an outcome. Eames Demetrios gave an engaging presentation and took time with fans through each book signing. Faculty and our student competitors also did a fantastic job and expressed enthusiasm for the opportunity with a lot of new information to take back home.
Our team was entirely responsible for all facets of making this event possible. We developed the concept, generated a budget, did our own fundraising and marketing, secured dual venues, hired AV, catering and printing, wrote content, designed, built and installed our exhibitions, coordinated our presenters and schools, managed volunteer staffing and orchestrated event flow. Thanks to the creativity and efficiency of our team we were also able to deliver the event under budget.
The opportunity was exceptional as participating members of the growing St. Louis design community and one we look forward to participating in again next year.
